Leading with Clarity When the Ground Won’t Stop Shifting

These aren’t rare “black swan” events anymore but a constant stream of unpredictable disruptions, the repercussions of which leaders at every level are confronting.

In this environment, successful strategic communication becomes proactive and integrated. More than a press release or supplemental sideline activity, it now needs to function as a core framework keeping planning, culture, and trust in sync. Leaders who can embed it into daily practice are able to set the agenda and shape outcomes, while the risk of treating it as an occasional tool is letting events and competitors get the upper hand.

Melissa Harris, Clio Award–winning strategist, former Chicago Tribune columnist, and founder of M. Harris & Co., says the mood across industries is unmistakable: “Almost every industry in America right now feels under siege. From universities to start-ups to healthcare systems, leaders are being asked to respond not just to crises of their own making, but to massive external forces beyond their control.”

Harris teaches leaders to guide teams through these moments with calm authority while seeing communication as a strategic system running through every facet of the job.

Rethinking What Counts as a Crisis

Many still picture “crisis communication” as something reserved for rare or catastrophic events like workplace violence (including active shooter incidents) or a major scandal. Harris argues it now applies far more broadly to include the barrage of large and small disruptions that demand response.

Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) describes three broad categories of crisis: the victim cluster (low responsibility, like a natural disaster), the accidental cluster (unintentional errors), and the intentional cluster (preventable harm). Effective leaders can communicate flexibly across this spectrum; what’s more, being able to do so becomes increasingly important as disruptions more often fall into gray zones, like tariff repercussions, sudden industry scrutiny, or cybersecurity breaches that destroy brand trust overnight.

Harris notes that even when a company is not directly at fault, its leaders must respond with clarity and decisiveness: “It can’t be a matter of blaming just because the root of the crisis isn’t your own. The reputational risk still is. That’s why you have to communicate the concrete steps your organization is taking.”

For Harris, this is different from the top-down approach to leadership of the past. Today’s leaders have to embrace communication that’s adaptive and audience-centric. This means diagnosing context and actively listening while modulating messaging for different stakeholders. It also means being open to new perspectives and course corrections.

Own the Narrative Early

Even today’s top organizations struggle to make good on this idea of communication. A common failure, Harris notes, is siloed decision-making. Improvements happen when conversations happen across units as decisions are made. “It’s important that you’re taking input from every crevice of your organization,” Harris says.

Another involves ignoring inconvenient developments and believing you can withdraw to safety. “Silence doesn’t work anymore,” Harris says. “Hoping something will blow over is not a strategy.” Not paying attention, she adds, can be as damaging as a poor response.

She points to the media industry’s slow adaptation to the internet as a cautionary tale. Companies saw the change coming but failed to move quickly enough to survive it intact. “Some lessons from those companies that did not adapt well to the internet are great lessons that can be applied to companies that perhaps aren’t paying enough attention to AI,” she says.

Missing the shift is only half the risk; failing to communicate early and clearly about your response is just as costly. Without that, employees, customers, and investors assume there’s no plan.

Composure as a Strategy

Harris likens the composure leaders need to a duck gliding across a pond—serene above the waterline, paddling hard beneath. This outward calm, she says, is not a sign of inaction but the discipline to remain visibly steady while working furiously behind the scenes.

One force feeding that steadiness is rooted in clarity of values. “When you know what matters most, you can work through chaos without letting it throw you off course,” she notes. She uses as an example the entrepreneur under pressure to expand her product line for a major retailer. Rather than chase short-term gains, she defended her focus with values-driven reasoning and preserved both her strategy and credibility.

As Harris puts it, “Once the strategy is set, communication becomes everything. You can’t execute a plan if your people don’t understand it, trust it, or believe in the reasons behind it.” Leaders must be able to articulate why they’re holding their ground in ways that resonate with investors, employees, and customers. Effective crisis communication, she notes, requires deliberate preparation and precise timing. This doesn’t happen accidentally, it requires training.

Modern leadership demands top communication skills. It no longer falls solely to PR professionals to manage internal and external messaging. Anyone leading a team, taking a seat at the table, or contributing to company decisions needs to navigate through turbulent times and offer successful solutions to the wide range of issues that now fall under “crisis communications.” From properly planning to staying calm under pressure when there is no script to follow, gaining the training and education that is needed to be a valuable and solutions-based leader is imperative to any company’s success.

Strategic Communication at UChicago Booth

For leaders ready to build those capabilities, Chicago Booth Executive Education’s course, Strategic Communication for Leaders: Protect Your Brand, Lead Your People, offers a hybrid educational experience that blends theory, practice, and improvisation.

The course begins with an online orientation, followed by a three-day intensive immersion at Booth’s Gleacher Center in downtown Chicago, and concludes with a one-on-one post-course consultation. Faculty and instructors include Harris; Jane Hirt, former Chicago Tribune managing editor and marketing leader for top brands; Jim Hock, former chief of staff to the US Secretary of Commerce; and Kelly Leonard, longtime Second City executive who has coached comedic icons like Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert.

Participants learn to show up as a commanding presence during uncertainty and craft memorable values-aligned messages, while responding to change quickly without sacrificing clarity or discipline. Case studies drawn from current headlines and emerging business challenges give participants practical frameworks for real-world application. The Second City improv sessions sharpen the sort of on-your-feet thinking that becomes invaluable when fielding tough questions and handling unexpected turns. The Autumn session of this course will be held in October 2025.